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“Everything about this reeks like a bad made-for-TV,” remarks a cynical podcaster during the horror sequel Influencers. In the moment, his tone is manipulatively dismissive toward an interviewee with an outlandish story he previously said he trusted. But his description of the events in the movie isn’t wrong. On its face, a pair of films on demand about a young woman who insinuates herself into the worlds of social media stars and then murders them feels like a modern-day version of a tawdry yet cable-ready Movie of the Week. The wild thing about Influencers remains how much better it proves to be than plenty of its competition, regardless of where you watch it. It’s the kind of thriller that should give other movies a serious bout of FOMO.

Revisiting the First Film and Establishing the Scene

The 2022 film Influencer tracks the mysterious CW (Cassandra Naud) as she quietly chooses traveling alone social media targets, entices them to their doom, and covers up those deaths (for a time) by seizing control of their socials. The film concludes (spoiler ahead) with CW stranded on a deserted island near the coast of Thailand, following her most recent mark, Madison (Emily Tennant), reverses their roles against her.

This provides 2025's Influencers some early ambiguity, when returning filmmaker Kurtis David Harder picks up with CW contentedly residing with her girlfriend Diane (Lisa Delamar) in Paris. During a trip marking their first anniversary, UK-based influencer Charlotte (Georgina Campbell) catches CW's attention and ire.

CW remarks to Diane that someone should try stranding a phone-addicted online personality in a place with no technology to see whether they can make it. Are we witnessing an origin-story prequel? Was CW radicalized by seeing the preferential treatment given to a single fame-seeker?

Shifting Perspectives and Global Pursuits

The story’s perspective changes multiple times, eventually clarifying those early scenes’ chronological position. Harder catches up with Madison, who has been exonerated for committing CW's offenses, but still faces suspicion regarding her version of what happened, which includes the killing of her boyfriend. The film also follows Jacob (Jonathan Whitesell), based in Bali and trying to boost his profile as half of a conservative-influencer duo with Ariana (Veronica Long), although his preferred medium is bro-heavy streams, rather than the Instagram photos that typically attract CW’s attention.

Naud remains immensely captivating in her role, which seems particularly custom-fit to her strengths. (She also designed CW's eye-catching wardrobe.) While the sequel’s screentime balance tips heavily toward CW — the original felt more equally divided between her and Madison — it still functions as a tale of dueling investigators, as Madison and CW employ fabricated profiles, social media surveillance, and a seemingly limitless travel fund to chase and/or escape each other. Of course, maybe the vast resources isn’t necessary. Online personalities possess a talent for gaining access to luxurious locales without paying much, an ability that CW echoes through her more blatant scheming.

Resourceful Production and Visual Wanderlust

The creative team for Influencers appear equally resourceful about finding beautiful places to film, though they were presumably more legitimate about it. Most of the movie appears to be filmed in real places, providing it an authentic gravity that remains even when numerous sequences consist of a handful of actors of characters looking at computer or phone screens.

It follows the same logic which allowed the James Bond movies look so persistently lavish over the years: Indeed, big action and visual effects can show off large spending, however simply offering a kind of visual tour for the audience also seems inherently cinematic. It’s also especially fitting for a story so rooted in the simultaneous surface-level allure and try-hard grind of creating envy-inducing digital content.

Every character visiting Bali, like those staying in Thailand in the original, appear to enjoy access to impossibly chic contemporary villas; there are movies about lifeguards that don’t show off as much aerial pool video. The characters have to convincingly inhabit these lush, far-flung locations to highlight the uneasy irony of how frequently each person — even the woman exacting revenge upon the online stars' self-centered phoniness — nonetheless devotes much time in the glow of their devices.

Nuanced Portrayals and Tech-Savvy Tension

At the same time, Harder hasn’t authored a screed targeting the emptiness of online fame. While it can be gratifying to see CW exploit various online personalities, and a sense reminiscent of Hitchcock of alignment allows us to wish she evades capture, Harder is somewhat understanding of the key influencer figures. In the first movie, he keyed into the isolation Madison experienced while on ostensibly dream getaways. Here, Harder seems to trust that just observing Jacob at work will reveal that he is selling false masculinity to other doofuses; he resists turning into a caricature the character. He even gives Jacob a measure of dignity by showing his true devotion to his girlfriend; he’s a hypocrite, but Ariana is a partner in his double standards, not a victim by it.

The flip side of this balanced approach means it may occasionally seem as if he’s nodding at bits of modern online life without deeply exploring them further. This is especially true regarding how he introduces artificial intelligence into the plot, a fascinating turn which misses the psychosexual kick it deserves. The pluralized title of Influencers might give fans of the first movie expectations of a larger-scale ante-upping, and the film ultimately delivers exactly that, with an appropriately chaotic climax. But before that, it’s more like a sleek Alfred Hitchcock movie than a wild-eyed, technology-obsessed De Palma-style shocker. Influencers’ extensive use of real-world locations may also be what prevents it from seeming like pure nightmare fuel. Our society may be overrun with always-online creators, online fraud, and self-serving tourism, but the world itself is still here, at least for now.